There has just been an article by James May on TV about the Ekranoplan, which as an engineer I find fascinating. The whole ground effect aerodynamics is interesting enough, but add to that the secrecy with which it was developed in the closed city of Nizhny Novgorod, and for how long the secrecy was maintained, and it is an amazing story.
This image is taken from Google Earth just outside of Kaspiysk.
